


Choices

by bahlovkarizma



Series: Choices [1]
Category: Doctor Who (2005), Torchwood
Genre: F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-19
Updated: 2013-02-19
Packaged: 2017-11-29 20:03:46
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,339
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/690900
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bahlovkarizma/pseuds/bahlovkarizma
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Doctor and Martha help Jack figure some things out.  Mentions one-sided Martha/10th Doctor hints at Gwen/Jack</p>
            </blockquote>





	Choices

**Author's Note:**

> In the episode 'Kiss Kiss Bang Bang' Jack tells Ianto that while he was away, he did a lot of thinking before asking him out on a date. This is his talking things over with both Martha and the Doctor on their way to dropping Jack off at Torchwood. If you haven't seen Torchwood, up to Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, or the Doctor Who episode 'Last of the Time Lord's', don't read this, there are spoilers abound. 
> 
> I'm going off of a cannon that when Rose met 9 he had barely regenerated, that's why he checked his reflection in the mirror, seeming surprised at how he looked. So when he leaves Rose the first time, that's when he went to the Krakatoa, Kennedy's assassination and the Daniels family of South Hampton, after he did those things, he realized he wanted her along and went back.

“Do you love him?” Martha's voice came from behind him and Jack turned and watched as she sat down next to him on the catwalk.

“Who? Ianto?” he asked, looking down at the handkerchief that Ianto had left behind that had found its way onto Jack's person and never found it's way off.

“No,” Martha replied, giving him a strange look, “him,” she said, jerking her head behind them where the Doctor had disappeared moments ago to get cleaned up and rest. Jack looked down at the hand in a jar that he was leaning against and laughed.

“I think I've been through every emotion when it comes to that man, love, hate, anger, you name it, I'm sure that I've felt it. Why do you ask?”

“Not many people would go through what you did, unless you cared deeply for the person you went through it for,” she replied.

“You do many stupid things when it's for the Doctor, I was a coward before I knew him. Plus, not many people can go through what I went through and come out on the other side.”

“Who's Ianto?” she asked when they had lapsed into silence and Jack looked down at the cloth again, “boyfriend?”

“Ah, no, he's more like a...” he paused, trying to think of a way of putting it delicately.

“Fuck-buddy?” Martha supplied and Jack laughed.

“Exactly,” he said nodding, “this is one of the handkerchief's from his suit, well one of his suits, he has several.”

“Been buddies long?” she asked.

“Not very, a few months.”

“Going well?”

“Depends on your definition,” he replied, sighing heavily.

“What do you mean?” 

“I sort of left without telling anyone, I heard the TARDIS' engines, grabbed the hand and started running, I wasn't going to miss my chance to talk to the Doctor.”

“Oh that might not end well,” she said, giving him a sympathetic look.

“And on top of that, I was dead for three days, woke up an hour before I left,” he replied.

“Three days? Isn't that unusual for you?”

“Very, my team opened the Rift, against my direct orders, and brought something out that only my death could end, I had no other choice.

“Of course you didn't, you hero types never do,” Martha said, bumping her shoulder into his. “Wait, so you're telling me that your team disobeyed a direct order, causing your death and probably a lot of guilt on their end, you died for three days and then left without saying goodbye? That's horrible.”

“Well when you put it that way, yeah,” he defended and Martha shook her head.

“Was Ianto waiting for you when you woke up?” she asked looking down at the handkerchief.

“No, Gwen was,” he said and Martha's eyebrow rose, “she's another one of my team, the newest member, she has a thing for me.”

“Have you and her...” Martha hedged and Jack shook his head.

“She has a long-term boyfriend, and where usually that doesn't bother me, something holds me back with her.”

“Perhaps it's Ianto,” Martha supplied and Jack shot her a questioning look.

“We weren't sleeping together when Gwen started with us,” he protested and she shook her head.

“Maybe not, but you didn't wake up one day and decide you wanted to shag him did you?”

“No, we'd been flirting since he started, but I have, or should say 'had', a policy of not sleeping with my team.”

“What changed?” she asked.

“Gwen kept going on about how she couldn't take her work home with her, couldn't talk to Rhys about everything, I tried to tell her that having a relationship outside of work was dangerous but she didn't listen. Then she started sleeping with Owen,” he noticed her look, “the doctor, actual doctor, on my team and well that was too much drama for me.”

“Does that mean that Ianto is your second choice?” Martha asked and Jack thought for a moment.

“I don't know, I mean, we've never been on a date or anything, it's not that kind of relationship, I don't know if he would want to, or if I want to.”

“Maybe you should figure it out,” she said, “ask him out, see what he says, see how it goes and go from there.”

“You are a brilliant woman Martha Jones, you should write books on this stuff,” Jack said, grinning at her and she returned it with one of her own. “So are you in love with him?” he asked a few minutes of silence later, bringing the conversation back around.

“Wouldn't that be stupid?” she asked, staring straight ahead, “there's no point in loving someone who is in love with someone else. I don't want to play second fiddle to a memory,” she said, looking at him.

“Oh, but what a girl to play second fiddle to,” he replied.

“Was she really that great?” she asked and Jack sat up a bit straighter and got a far off look in his eyes.

“No,” he said, a small smile on his lips, “she was better than great. She was smart, funny, brave, didn't take anything from the Doctor, could put him in his place when needed, and he did, believe me.”

“Sounds like you loved her too,” Martha pointed out but Jack shook his head.

“No, not like the Doctor, I think I loved her, but I wasn't in love with her, I could see that she was barmy over the Doctor and he felt the same way, I wouldn't get between that. He told me once, that she changed him, for the better. He said when he met her, he had just come from the Time War, lost everything, his home, his people, he was angry, bitter and didn't need a blond, annoying woman tagging along.”

“What changed?” she asked.

“She saved my life,” the Doctor's voice broke in and they turned to find him standing behind them, his hands in his trouser pockets.

“You should be resting,” Jack pointed out and the Doctor shrugged.

“Time Lord, don't need it.”

“She saved your life?” Martha asked and the Doctor nodded once.

“And the Earth, saved it from living plastic, breast implants,” he said, smiling to himself like he was thinking of an inside joke.

“I remember that,” Martha said.

“She turned me down the first time I asked her to come along,” he continued.

“And here, I had to beg to become your full time companion,” Martha muttered.

“Why did you go back?” Jack asked

“When I'd met her, I had just regenerated, and stumbled across the Nestene Consciousness, when the whole thing was over, I realized how resourceful she was and didn't want to continue alone. I left and had this idea in my head, I had been able to save her and the rest, I could do more. I was there for the Krakatoa, President Kennedy's assassination but wasn't able to do anything to stop them. Then I came across a family by the name of Daniels that were going to travel by a new ship, newly built, to America.”

“The Titanic,” Jack pointed out, he had done his research on the Doctor, having a lot of time to wait and the Doctor nodded.

“I was able to stop them from going and they lived, obviously. I was elated with being able to help someone again, but realized that I had no one to share it with, so I went back.” 

“Well, I'm glad you did, even if she did stick me with this immortal thing,” Jack replied.

“Well I need sleep,” Martha said several moments later, after being stuck between two men who were missing the same girl.

“Have a good night,” the Doctor said, smiling up at her and she returned the smile before walking away. “She's leaving,” the Doctor said a few minutes after she had gone and Jack nodded.

“She loves you, you can't love her back,” he said and glanced at the Doctor.

“Another curse of the Time Lord's,” the other man replied and Jack chuckled. “I'll be alone again,” he continued, sighing deeply.

“You're not alone you know,” Jack returned and the Doctor looked at him, an eyebrow raised.

“I know, I'm sure I'll pick up some pore stranger who doesn't know what they are getting into until it's too late.”

“That's not what I mean,” Jack said smiling, “I mean, I know I'm no Time Lord, and there are better looking companions, not many, but I can't die.” The Doctor stared at him for a long moment, as if the idea hadn't occurred to him. “You wouldn't want me,” Jack spoke again before the Doctor could, “you'd be babysitting, no matter where we'd go, I'd hit on someone or something and lets face it, I'd probably fall in love with you too.” This was said with a laugh and a grin which fell of his face when he saw the Doctor staring at him intently.

“I wouldn't mind,” he eventually said and Jack paused.

“My falling in love with you?” he asked and the Doctor rolled his eyes.

“You coming along.”

“Said the man who left me behind the first time,” Jack pointed out.

“That had to be done, and I'm sure I would be tempted to do it again and again if you were to join me, but I would promise not to, or I'd promise to come back. Eventually.” Jack looked down again at the handkerchief, thinking.

“I can't,” he said apologetically, “I need to get back to my team.”

“Right,” the Doctor said, nodding.

“One day though, I'll take you up on that, I promise,” Jack went on and the Doctor smiled at him.

“Deal. What's that then?” he asked, looking down at the cloth in Jack's hand. “Who is she? He? It?” he asked and Jack laughed.

“It's complicated,” he replied.

“I wouldn't expect anything less from you,” the Doctor pointed out and Jack nodded.

“It's both,” Jack said.

“So it is an 'it'?” the Doctor asked and Jack snorted a laugh.

“No, it's a man and a woman, two different people,” he explained. 

“What's complicated about it?”

“Well for starters, the woman, Gwen, has a boyfriend and a pretty serious one at that,” he explained, refusing to meet the Doctor's eyes.

“Sounds like it shouldn't be complicated, she's taken,” the other man pointed out and Jack nodded.

“Exactly, but there is something between us, I know she likes me, she's not very subtle about it, she's quite obvious actually, but on top of her being with Rhys, she's slept with Owen.”

“She's making her way through the group then?” the Doctor asked and Jack nodded. “Do you love her?”

“No, God, no, there is just something about her that I can't ignore, but at the same time she's been with Rhys for years,” he said and trailed off, realizing that he was gripping the handkerchief tightly.

“What about him?” the Doctor asked and Jack forced himself to relax his grip.

“That's more complicated, if you can believe that. Ianto Jones is his name, one of the greatest men I know. He worked at Torchwood One, Canary Wharf,” Jack said and he saw the Doctor nod, “he was one of the few that survived. He saved my life, as it were, from a Weavel, came out of nowhere and beat the thing until it turned to attack him. He showed up the next day asking for a job, in jeans and a t-shirt, not that that's important, but he usually wears suits, this is one of his handkerchief's. I told him no, but he kept coming back and I kept telling him no. He surprised me one night when he asked me to help him catch a pterodactyl he'd found, I was ready to run him over before he mentioned that.”

“Was 'catching a pterodactyl' code for...?” the Doctor asked and Jack laughed out loud.

“No, there was actually a pterodactyl that we caught, she stays at the Hub with us, she's kind of our mascot now. Anyway, after that, I offered him a job, nothing more than a butler, he cleans up after us, does the paperwork, takes care of the dry cleaning and makes coffee, he makes great coffee. After a while, we kept getting weird power spikes and we couldn't find out why. It turned out it was due to Ianto,” here Jack trailed off, a far-off look in his eyes. “Ianto had a girlfriend, Lisa, with him at Canary Wharf, she unfortunately had been in the process of being turned.”

“Oh no,” the Doctor said quietly and Jack nodded.

“Turned out that the power spikes were due to him trying to keep her alive, the only reason he wanted a job was because of her.”

“When did you find out?” the other man asked.

“When she got free, killed a scientist that Ianto had brought in to help her, killed an innocent pizza delivery girl and nearly killed us all. I was so angry Doctor, I mean I had him on his knees, my gun to his head, ready to kill him.”

“What stopped you?”

“He said that we didn't care about him, never paid attention to him, and we didn't, I didn't. When we went out, we left him behind, we played Hubball without him, he was the silent help, I treated him as nothing but the butler, the others followed my lead. I figured he could redeem himself by killing her,” he caught the Doctor's surprised look out of the corner of his eye and sighed. “He didn't do it, I had to, when we got back down there, she had moved her consciousness to the delivery girl's body and was trying to convince him to let her live. I put a bullet in her head. I nearly retconned him, I was so angry at him, I was thinking of retconning him completely, wipe his memory fully and dump him somewhere, but I couldn't.”

“What changed?” the Doctor asked and Jack closed his eyes, thinking back to that horrible 'camping trip'.

“We were investigating disappearances along a highway, people would just go missing, anyway we all ended up separated, Gwen was shot, Ianto and Tosh were caught, it was hell, I nearly lost them all. Ianto ended up distracting their captors and Tosh got away, but not for long, they ended up catching them all. When I showed up, they had a knife to Ianto's throat, I saw red and started shooting, didn't kill them, maimed most of them, I don't think some of them will ever walk again, but I can't say I care. The really shit part about the whole thing, is that they were humans, some sick little village that hunted people, ate them. I don't get nightmares Doctor, not with everything I've seen over the years, but this one, this one brought them back.

“Some of the most brutal beings in the universe I've found are humans,” the Doctor said quietly and Jack nodded.

“I believe it. Anyway, I live in the Hub, there is a small, bunker-like room below it and that's where I sleep, everyone else has their own flats, but I started noticing that Ianto was there when I turned in and when I woke up. I took me about a week to realize that he wasn't going home, or sleeping for that matter. I woke up one night from a nightmare to find a steaming cup of tea on my nightstand. I went in search of him and found him in the archives, cataloging, filing, nearly dead on his feet, when I asked him what he was doing, he told me he couldn't sleep because of the nightmares. I dragged him down to my bunk and made him lie down, he fell asleep almost right away. I watched him all night and perhaps he was too tired to dream, but he didn't wake up for almost a full day. We slept together a few nights later for the first time, stress relief. Nothing happened for a while after that, not until we had to kill Suzy again.”

“Suzy? Again?” the Doctor asked.

“Long story short, she used to work with us, I had to kill her the first time, only after she shot me in the head, and we had to bring her back to life to solve a case and then kill her again. Well, after that, he reminded me that he had a stopwatch that he used to time our meetings and we found some interesting uses for it,” he said with a smirk.

“Do I even want to know?” the Doctor asked and Jack grinned at him.

“Five words : Naked Hide and Go Seek.”

“Definitely do not want to know,” the Doctor said, shaking his head. “Look Jack, I'm by no means an expert at relationships,” he continued, “I'm actually shit at them, but you need to make a decision. Do you love him?”

“No, but I think I could,” Jack said threading the cloth through his hands again.

“Well if you ever get to that point, don't hesitate to tell him,” the Doctor said an odd note in his voice and Jack looked at him sharply.

“Speaking from experience?” he asked and the Doctor sighed and Jack's eyes widened. “Don't tell me,” he said and the other man looked away guiltily. “Rose told you that she loved you and you didn't say it back?” he demanded.

“I ran out of time,” the Time Lord defended himself and Jack's eyes narrowed.

“You want to explain that to me?”

“We were separated, she'd been pulled into a parallel universe and I had a small window to say goodbye,” he replied looking back at the other man. “I burned up a sun to do it.”

“And you didn't have the time to say three small words?” Jack demanded and the Doctor shook his head, his eyes narrowing.

“I would burn up a thousand suns, just to talk to her one more time, to bring her back, anything but to have left it like that. I promised her” he said quietly, his eyes closing in pain.

“What did you promise her?” Jack asked, resting a hand on the other man's shoulder.

“I promised that she wouldn't be left behind, forgotten, like the others, the day she realized that she wasn't my first companion, I swore to her I wouldn't leave her behind.” They were silent for a long time, the Doctor's head rested in his hands, Jack's hand resting on his shoulder.

“What about Martha?” Jack asked finally and the Doctor laughed, a bitter short bark.

“That's just a mess,” he said, sitting up straight, “I didn't honestly see that coming.”

“Really?” Jack asked.

“Ok, I had a feeling, I was hoping I was wrong, she wants me to say it, but I can't, it would be a lie and just end up hurting her more in the end. She's great, she's smart, but I can't look past what I've lost, I would need more time if I could ever feel that way towards her.”

“Have you ever said those words?” Jack asked and the Doctor shot him a look but didn't say anything. “Can you say those words?”

“I can say them Jack,” the Doctor replied and Jack laughed.

"Right," Jack said and clapped the other man on the back.

"What are you two talking about?" Martha asked them a few minutes later, claiming to be too tired to rest.

"Naked Hide and Go Seek," the Doctor said and Jack laughed.

"Yeah, I'm trying to talk the Doctor into playing, you interested?" he asked her and she looked between them.

"No, I think I'll sit this one out, I'll watch though."

"I like the way you think Martha Jones," Jack said, climbing to his feet, followed by the Doctor.

"Right, time to get you back where you belong," the Time Lord said, moving towards the controls of the TARDIS.


End file.
